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*** September Challenge - What is your Style? ***

In this month's challenge we are looking for individual styles of mapping. The challenge is to draw a regional map of part of a coastline and to bring your own mapping style to the table. We would particularly like to encourage people who have not taken part in a monthly challenge before to enter. Entering a challenge is a good way to improve your mapping skills as you have a deadline to work to - you will be able to get a lot of advice (bidden and unbidden) from other members of the guild!

We have produced a map attached below which could use some improvement (it was drawn by RobA after all). Your challenge is to translate the attached map into your very own style. Change the colours, symbols and text and make this map your own. Make it 3d, or draw it on paper: intricate or simple - it is up to you.

By way of explanation:

The big magenta hexagon is a city
The small magenta hexagons are towns
The greeny yellow smudges are marshes
The bright green smudges are forests
The pointy lines are mountains
The rounded lines are hills
The blue lines are rivers

North is at about 11 o'clock.
Each edge of the map is 100 miles.

We would like voters to vote for the map which has the most individual style in which all the elements of the map work together to form a pleasing whole. As this contest is about individuality, all contestants should list with their map any elements used which were not created by them.

Final entries to be posted by 25th September.

Good Luck!!!

Attached Thumbnails

Last edited by ravells; 09-01-2008 at 02:03 PM.
Reason: Edited final entry date to reflect 5 days of voting.

No fair ... my individual style is severely hampered by a lack of anything resembling artistic talent. All of the symbols I use will be by someone else. I have a sense of aesthetics, but no talent. Unless of course, you want the map to look somewhat like the map shown above.

Last edited by Valarian; 09-01-2008 at 03:37 PM.

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You can use them, you just have to say that you have used them. If you're using CC to make the map, just say you've used CC symbols. Colour and compositional choices are pretty important too. I've seen symbol maps with great symbols but which just don't go together (few of my own would probably fit into that category). Have a go Ian -it'll be fun.

I have some questions:
1) Is this meant for print, VTT, or some other mass distribution?
2) Is this meant to be a hypothetical map request to see how well we translate what some unknown author gives us as his/her starting point? If yes, then the following questions are irrelevant.
3) How much coast fidelity will we be judged on? I know it has be close but the black stroke on the landmasses makes it a lil hard for 100% accuracy when enlarged.
4) I have attached a pic with 2 areas of note if fidelity has to be really accurate: A) The circled area on the left denotes a river not connected to a large lake...should it stay this way or can I attach it? B) The circled area on the right, because of the stroking, I cannot tell if this is meant to be some islands or one large island with lakes.

Again, questions 3 and 4 need only be answered if acute fidelity needs to be the goal (ie over 90% accuracy).

Edit: PS - What sort of climate do we have here?

Attached Thumbnails

Last edited by Ascension; 09-01-2008 at 06:39 PM.
Reason: Omission

If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)

You don't have to be that faithful to the exact shape, meaning you don't have to follow every crinkle in the coastline. Near enough for a good resemblance will do. As far as the guild is concerned the map is for competition purposes only - yes this is a hypothetical map made by RobA for the purpose of the competition.

More guidance from RobA who is away and is on his blackberry (I always knew those things had to be good for something). The square brackets are my amendments where RobA has posed choices.

The map doesn't have to be square so long it is of (arbitrarily) 80% of the orinal (if smaller) or is 80% original (if larger). I.e. Feel free to remove smaller islands on the edges or complete cut off islands at the edges.

Also it... [should] be at a higher resolution than the sample

[the] map is a general guideline to be followed as closely as reasonable and as reasonable as possible.

For example there is no specified road network or indication of era so this could be anything from an alien planet with analagous features and domed cities to a frontier in the viking days to an established (romanesque) empire to a modern metropolis complete with high speed mag lev lines...

I.E. .... Have fun with it, as long as it follows the original simple map provided as a basis. I believe the intended purpose is to see how everyone would draw the same map applying their own individual style to it.